San Ramon is the place where i-to-i host most of their building projects in Costa Rica at the moment. It is a really good set up. You stay with a host family, usually with a couple of other volunteers. Sometimes you have your own room and sometimes you share with another volunteer. Host families are really nice. All your meals are provided for you so all you have to take care of are snacks really.
Most of the host family homes are located in the centre of San Ramon. They are just around the corner from the local shopping centre. From here you can walk to wherever you need in town.
In the mornings after breakfast, most of the volunteers from your building site meet up somewhere in the estate and together walk to the bus stop. You travel together to your building site where you spend the day working on site with a local foreman and possibly another builder. Sometimes family members of whoever you are building the house for will often be around helping out too.
The work is tough but a lot of fun. You could be doing anything from digging a septic tank system and foundations to making cement to building walls, helping with roofing, painting. It all depends on how long you are on your project and what stage the build is at.
You work from 9 'till about 5 with a lunch break and you are wrecked at the end of the day but it is amazing to see the project develop in front of your eyes. Houses go up really quick in Costa Rica. They are small but are perfect for the lifestyle of the people out there. Building is a great project for people who really want to see the results of their work fast. It is a really rewarding project too because you have direct contact with the family you are out there building a house for. On the building site I was working on the girl who we were building a house for came to visit the site twice a day and brought much needed cold drinks and tea for us all as her way of showing how much she appreciated the work we were doing for her. She couldn’t believe that people were coming from all over the world to help her to have a home. She couldn’t have thanked us enough and it is a really nice feeling to know how much your work was being appreciated!
If you are heading out to a building project there are a couple of things that are a couple of important things to bring with you. Work gloves are really important because your hands can get wrecked. Some people bought wellington/rain boots too and used them as an alternative way to mix cement by walking through it! Sun cream and a hat because you are out in the sun all day. And all your work clothes that you bring you have to be prepared to throw them all away at the end of the project because they will get absolutely wrecked at work.
In your time off you are free to do whatever you like. There are loads of internet café’s in San Ramon so contact with home is easy to maintain and you can buy phone cards anywhere. Some phone networks also work out there but you might want to check with your phone company before you go just in case. Having said that most volunteers are so tired in the evenings that they take it easy at night and get a few beers in a local pub.
Because San Ramon is less than an hour from San Jose it is really easy to access other places to travel to during the weekend. The options are endless. You can take a trip to La Fortuna, Puerto Viejo or wherever else you might like to visit!